It was arduous to keep up with Bo. He did not even try to slow down to help her keep up, and the pace left her panting and sweating despite the chill of the forest.

“So…how do you know my mother?” she asked. Something in the pit of her, despite Bo’s coldness, drove her to talk, to ask questions.

“I’ve known her a while,” he answered vaguely, not even out of breath.

“Oh. Well. Where does she live? What kind of sickness does she have?”

“She lives…uh…close to the school. I don’t know.”

“Did she actually send you? Is this what you do? What do you really do?”

“Yes. And no. And I don’t know. Just…stop asking questions,” he grunted.

Okay, so his life was off limits. She felt an anxiety well up within her stomach like a wolf howling for prey. It leaped, snatching any of her confidence in its jowls.

When the sun was low in the sky, Bo stopped, looking to make camp. All they had to sleep on was dead leaves and earth. She missed the little hut.

She ate silently, watching Bo for any sign of a good humor, but instead, all she got was a sober face, neglecting to look at her at all. He gave her some water in its ice form, and she sucked on it. He barely met her eyes. And she felt more shame from that. Did she do something?

Well. She almost got them both killed by…pixies? Leena noticed the scratch wounds on his face and hands. They were scabbed up, but some places where his skin moved were still a shiny red in the luminescence of the light orb. The shame filled her to her fingertips, and she felt like her piece of bread would fall to the earth.

So she gave it back to him.

He ended up pulling together piles of leaves, dried and brittle, for both of them. It was uncomfortable, but he gave Leena his extra clothes, and she used them as a pillow. She hugged her knees up to her chest, making herself small. He turned out the light orb.

There were no stars.

There was no moon.

The chill went through her coat, and she wished they could at least leave the light orb on, but she did not want to ask for that. Instead, she lay in a state of misery, like a fish suspended in a bucket of ice water, barely alive, too cold to move. Too cold not to move.

Snap!

Her heart stopped, and she listened.

“Who’s there?” she called softly, hoping it was just Bo.

No one answered. She listened closely and heard the soft breathing of Bo across from her.

Snap, crack.

She stayed still, waiting with breath raggedly leaving and entering her lungs.

Nothing.

More nothing.

She started to relax a bit. Maybe it was just the sticks beneath them, cracking under their weight.

She sat up, slowing her breathing and suddenly needing to pee.

Leena tried to be quiet as she left Bo to go away back behind a tree.

It was difficult to navigate in the blackness.

“I seeeeee you…”

Shivers ran down her spine. That voice…

“Haha. I see you…Leeeena.” Tears started to well up in her eyes. She whirled around her, feeling for a tree.

“How are you?” sneered that ugly voice from the trees.

She knew that voice.

It was familiar.

It was…no.

It couldn’t be?

That boy.

It had been a while since she had gone into Icherrun, but she remembered that boy.

Before she had been explicitly forbidden from going into town, she would go there openly, either to hang about in the town square or to visit the shops to browse. She sometimes did errands for Grandfather. She knew people looked at her strangely as she visited. She heard unintelligible whispers, but they never harmed her directly. Except one group.

The local gang of youth who tended to wreak havoc.

The local gang whose goal was to make her miserable if they ever saw her. Leena made sure to avoid areas where he frequented. Except, they actually went to look for her in the town when they caught whiff of her.

The leader was Tucker.

“Hey, Leeeeeena,” he said, extending the long vowel in her name. She remembered turning to see him, standing there with his gang.

He was walking jauntily towards her, some of his friends behind him were pushing each other and laughing. Leena scanned her surroundings for a way to escape. The alley was the closest path out. Maybe she could get to the other end.

“Why’re you here, little rat?” Tucker sneered at her, closing in on her, confident and a bit larger than her.

“I’m leaving now, I’m leaving,” she mumbled, backing away from him. She turned to go down the alley but ended up face to face with one of his larger friends. She glanced back at him. He seemed almost proud. There was an arrogance inside him that made her blood boil; simultaneously, she also felt terrified.

“Not so fast, you have to pay the toll,” Tucker said, running his hand over his shorn dark hair. His eyes blazed with a weird mix of malignant intent and eagerness, as if he was a cat with a cornered mouse.

She felt the panic rise in her insides, twisting them and malforming her organs into goo.

“Just-Just leave me alone!” she said strongly, trying to be braver than she felt. His hand grabbed her arm, and she felt the roughness of it; the tightness broke the blood flow to her hand.

Panic.

She punched him with her free hand.

He must not have been ready for that because he let go of her, grabbing at his nose which was bleeding profusely, pooling red down his nice shirt.

“Damn it! What the hell!” Leena tried to scamper away around the kid behind her, but he grabbed at her, catching her by the shoulder and holding her so her arms were locked. She kicked out at him, struggling to get free, but his hold was tight.

“You little rat!” Tucker cursed at her, “You broke my damn nose!” She felt for the knife in her pocket that she carried with her, but her hand couldn’t quite reach.

“Beat her?”

“Break her nose?”

“Break her arms? Legs?” The others were chiming in with horrifying ideas. Leena felt her strength sapping from her. She was no fighter. She just wanted to be around people. Someone other than Grandfather. She just wanted to do normal things. Be normal. Why did they have to pick on her?

“Ah! Bugger! Get them away!”

A rat was biting at the legs of one of the kids by Tucker. The kid was trying to step on it, and the others were trying to grab it. One kid managed to pull out a stick from somewhere and was trying to hit it.

Tucker started to yell at them.

Another rat appeared and bit the kid who was holding her. He howled.

“Another rat! Another rat!” He stomped around, swinging her around, but his grip loosened. She pulled away from him and dashed away.

“Damn it! Get the rocks!” Tucker yelled. She ran and felt the first one hit her in the back.

It hurt.

She turned to look back as she saw them throwing stones in her direction, picking them up from their pockets as if they expected to use them. One of the rats was in Tuckers hand.

She saw him squeeze it as it tried to escape, biting and clawing.

A rock hit her right in her temple.

Pain split down her face, and dizziness shook her eyes. She focused on running straight, feeling the true stones hit her back as she ran. The errant ones flew past her.

It was the worst thing they had done so far.

And it was the last thing they had done to her.

Until now, maybe. She pressed her back against the tree, pulling out her knife.

“Hey, little rat. What are you doing here?”